Disaster Zone
by Paths Crossing
Summary: Everything looks innocent in the beginning. Nothing ever really happened to me, until that one year when life blew up in my face... Formerly titled It All Started With Tap Tap Tap
1. Prolouge

**Prologue **

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

I half opened one eye, vision blurred by sleep. Had I been able to see clearly, I was pretty sure my clock would read 12:20, or something along those lines.

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

I opened my other eye and blinked in a futile attempt to clear my vision. It took a moment to dawn on my sleep-stupid mind that perhaps putting on my glasses would help. I don't particularly like wearing them, even though my friends – scratch that, _friend_, I'm not exactly popular – says they look good. I, personally, think they're stupid little devices designed to slide awkwardly down my nose and make seeing clearly miserable. Stupid nearsightedness.

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

I rammed my glasses on none to gently, and peered through the blurriness that was testimony to my unwillingness to clean them. Perhaps I really should get around to it some day…

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

Under any normal circumstances, I would probably be hiding under my covers making strange and somehow 'logical' 'rationalizations' that the unceasing tapping on my window was somehow connected to a gang of mass murders who were breaking into the house, despite it being a good forty minute drive from any good-sized city, and all in freezing cold temperatures. In case you haven't guessed, yes I'm paranoid.

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

Idiot that I am, I forget to pick up my flashlight before going wading through the piles of junk on my floor. This results in a stubbed toe from a stack of hard-cover books that I've read a million times, a banged shin from my insanely placed bookshelf, and a piece of pencil lead stuck in my left arm to go with the one on my right. Great. _Another _bloody black dot that I'm _never _to get out. I really need to stop leaving pencils on the floor and then tripping and impaling myself upon them.

_Tap tap tap. TAP TAP TAP._

And now, it appears I'd better hurry if I want to find whatever stupid thing-without-a-brain that dares to wake me from my rest. Making my cautious way back to my bed, I pick up the little blue flashlight I got for Christmas and flick it on. My cat, Ashes, looks at me in an annoyed manner, and I swear that if she could talk, she'd say something like. 'Bloody stupid human, what are you doing? It's midnight, you fool!'

_TAP! TAPITTY TAP._

Well, look at that. The stupid three-tap-pause-three-tap-stop rhythm has broken. It's a miracle.

Safely guided by my flashlight, I make my way over to the window where the tapping is emanating from. It was becoming more and more frenzied and _annoying _by the moment.

_TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP!!!_

Right. Maybe I really should get around to opening that window…

--

I don't know exactly whether it was foolishness or some greater force that made me open that window and let in the blast of cold air and the owl with a letter tied to its leg that night. All I knew in the years to come was that it was a very good thing that my stupid paranoia left me alone. Because if it hadn't it's very likely I never would've gotten that letter, and never been shipped off to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

However, there could be a few drawbacks…

Such as being in the same year and house as a certain three students, one of which is one of the focal points of the biggest war in history….

_A/N: Okay, in case my last few words in the last sentence didn't say it, yes, I'm going to play around with the book's plotline. Chapter one will start in fifth year, up until which everything has been the same. Then I'm probably going to blow the war way out of what it was in the book, and turn it into world war three._

_Advice? Criticism ? Sorry it was so short. The next chapter will be longer._


	2. Of Detention and NonExistent Bogeymen

**Chapter One**

_-Fifth Year-_

I remember hearing a bunch of fifth years talking about O.W.L exams one morning in the great hall when I was in third year. They were describing them like they were the worst possible thing imaginable. They said that O.W.L.s were the thing that made you want to set all your books on fire, throw them out the window, and go have the giant squid in the black lake eat you. I thought they were exaggerating. Guess what? They weren't.

O.W.L.s are the thing that make you want to kill almost every teacher in the school, destroy your books by feeding them to… a …a… er… a blast-ended skrewt, set all the classrooms on fire, and then become a hermit and live out your days in the Forbidden Forest.

If you could somehow get out of Azkaban, that is.

But that could be just me. And the fact that I already want to kill our idiotic Defense Against Pixies and Non-existent Bogeymen teacher. That's what I've started calling the class that used to be known as Defense Against the Dark Arts. Stupid Umbridge. Stupider Minister.

All the homework we're being assigned has been messing with my brain. I've started having the strangest dreams, like the one where I'm being chased around the room by rolls of parchment with quills attempting to kill me and stupid Umbridge prancing around cackling followed by a gang of red-eyed, fang-sporting, blood-sucking pink kittens. Oh, and did I mention that the color pink was attempting to murder me also?

I think I'm going insane. My sister always said I was slightly cuckoo.

The sister I'm referring to is my twin sister. We're the only two in our family who're magic, apparently. My mom thinks that's because we were adopted, that our real parents must have been magic. Sometimes it's annoying having a twin, especially when we're nothing alike. She's in Slytherin (Reason number one we suspect that our real parents were magic), I'm in Gryffindor. She's got shortish blond hair and my hair's long- at least longer than all the other girls in my year- and black. Her eyes are honey-brown and mine are ice-blue. There's nothing really extraordinary about her facial bone structure, but I've got high cheekbones. She's got perfect eyesight and I need glasses. My sister looks like our mother apparently. I must look like our father. At first we thought we had different parents, and I liked the idea. But, as it turns out, the orphanage can prove we didn't. Our mother apparently gave birth to us in a nearby hospital and dropped us off at the orphanage as soon as we were old enough. The only thing she left us were our names. My sister's Althea.

And me?

I'm Jinx. Jinx Dare.

~::~

It's not my fault I fell asleep. I swear it isn't. Defense Against the Dark Arts (CoughPixiesandNon-existentBogeymenCough) is just to boring. So why did I have to get detention? And why on earth did I have to let my big fat mouth argue with her when she also took away ten points? Why did I actually tell her too her face that I thought she was a really bad teacher, so now I'm going to have detention for a week? Why am I so stupid?

Oh yeah. I'm crazy. Well, not really. At least partially so.

And that's why I wound up at supper, feeling to sick to eat anything. Not only has my psychotic imagination kicked in and started imagining all sorts of medieval torture devices – _pink, _mind you- but I've also got a load of homework that's due tomorrow that my stupid, procrastinating self put off until the last minute. Whoopee.

And, apparently, my detention is at the same time as Harry Potter's. I think he got detention from her in one of the earlier classes, because he said she was lying about You-Know-Who not being back. I wouldn't know. I was asleep. So he's only got one or two left. Lucky him. I've still got a whole week of detention's happy joy to look forward too.

…I am _such _an idiot.

~::~

Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot IDIOT IDIOT!!! I'm a stupid, sleeping-machine IDIOT! How on earth could I fall asleep fifteen minutes before my detention, only to be woken up just now in the common room by Parvati and Lavender – my friends/acquaintances mostly because we're in the same dorm- who'd just seen my sleeping there and realized I had detention.

"Please, please, pleasepleaseplease tell me that clock is fast!" I shrieked, looking back at Parvati. She didn't seem to know what to say. I wasn't surprised. It's not every day that a crazy, sleep deprived person who should be in detention asks you to tell them the clock is fast.

"Thanksforwakingmeupgottago,ohsheisgoingtomurderme!" I said, all in one breath, throwing my books in my bag and sprinting out the portrait hole.

Halfway there I ran into Peeves, who immediately started bombarding me with ink and some other substance that I don't know and don't want to.

"PEEVES, SOMEDAY I SWEAR I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!"

"Can't kill me, I'm already dead!" He said, blowing the most enormous raspberry this world has ever seen at me, before floating through a wall laughing to himself.

"ARRRRGGHHH, YOU STUPID POLTERGIST!!!!" I screamed after him, though it looked like I was screaming at a wall, which is exactly what those first years at the end of the hall must have thought. I opened my mouth as though to say something else, but I couldn't think of anything, so I walked right by pretending that I was perfectly sane.

And so, it was five more minutes before I arrived at Umbridge's office. I swear the look she gave me when I burst into her office, panting, breathless, and ink splattered, could've frozen hell over and made it stay that way for a century.

"Sorry…I'm… late…professor....... fell…asleep." Was all I managed to squeeze out between desperate gulps for air. Oxygen is a wonderful thing, you know.

She raised her eyebrows at me, which about doubled…nah tripled- the intensity of her newly named stare-of-death-and-doom-and-destruction.

"Fell asleep, you say?" She said in her annoyingly high, someday-I-will-strangle-you, fluttery little-girl voice. "Why, now, that's most unfortunate!" she giggled "I'm afraid I shall have to take away another five points for that, Miss Dare, and you shall get another detention."

That stupid, fat, ugly, evil, little toad crossed with a blast-ended skrewt. I kept glaring at her as she motioned for me to sit down. I took a chair at a little table in the corner, where I could see everything. Everything _except _the little bloody words on the back of Harry Potter's hand, which my stupid selectively blind mind chose to omit, for some reason unknown. I think my mind is formulating some kind of conspiracy with my stupid imagination that goes something along the lines of make-Jinx-not-see/here-very-important-relevant-things-and-get-in-more-trouble.

Meanwhile, the ugly skrewt from Mars waved her wand at a piece of parchment and a quill, which promptly floated over to me. Poor parchment and quill. Forced to obey the whim of that evil smirking _creature_.

"Now, Miss Dare, I would like to write 'I must not talk back', until I tell you to stop. You may begin."

Lines? That wasn't so bad. I picked up the quill and looked around the desk. Realizing that she hadn't given my any ink, I reached into my bag to get some. I was forcing my hand through a bunch of parchment that was already wrinkled, so it didn't really matter if I wrinkled it more…er… okay, ripped it, when Umbridge noticed that I wasn't writing.

"What exactly is it that you are doing, Miss Dare?"

"Getting ink." I said, my hand finally finding a bottle and pulling it out. "You forgot to give me any."

"You won't be using ink. Now, be a good girl and put it back."

I could feel my face burning as I slipped the ink back into my bag. How _dare _that arrogant, condescending, _frog _tell me to _be a good girl_? I wasn't a baby and she most certainly was _not _my mother.

Once I had straightened up again, I put my quill down to the paper and paused, a bit confused as to what to do next. I glanced up, first at Umbridge, who was sipping her tea and grading papers, than at Harry, who was looking right back at me. He pointed at his hand, and when I looked, my eyes went wider than they'd ever been before. For right there, bleeding slightly, were words I could just read saying '_I must not tell lies_'.

So _this _is what she has us do for detention! Urk… and I thought _I _could think up bad things.

Umbridge seemed to notice that I wasn't writing. She put down her tea and looked my right in the eye, a completely hate able look of innocence on her face.

"Is something wrong dear?"

I didn't look at her. Instead, I narrowed my eyes and looked back at the paper. I realized she wasn't going to let me go until I written lines to a satisfactory length, so I clenched my jaw and started to write.

'I must not talk back'

The words appeared on the back of my hand at the same time as on the parchment. Then they healed over right away. I started to write again.

'I must not talk back'

'I must not talk back'

'I must not talk back'

I lost count of how many times I wrote that over and over, until the words remained carved in bleeding lines in the back of my hand. But it was long enough for me to notice that I couldn't write anything except the same words, exact same size and shape, over and over, and I couldn't make a mistake even when I _wanted _to.

Some time later, Umbridge decided that Harry and I had served enough time for the night, and let us go. I picked up my bag carefully with one hand, while examining the bleeding one curiously. The words didn't fade but continued to sting, throbbing steadily. I noticed that my hand had also gone slightly paler than usual.

"Essence of Murtlap usually helps."

At this point, I jumped about five inches into the air and somehow left into the wall at the exact same time. I hadn't noticed anybody walking anywhere near me, and yet somehow my mind – which I already mentioned is selectively blind and a conspirator against me – carefully omitted this rather important bit of information. I'll kill it someday. …. Er… waitasec… I can't kill it. I'd kill myself.

And now I'd probably better get around to responding.

"Er… okay… and where would I get this Essence of Murklap?"

Did I mention that I'm an idiot yet? Because I am. I'm the hugest, most ginormous idiot this world has ever seen.

"Murtlap. Madam Pomfrey probably has some."

Oh. Murtlap. Thought I said that wrong. Dumb brain.

So, I thanked Harry for that bit of advice, took the soonest detour I could find to the hospital wing, and spent about three minutes hiding behind a statue to avoid Peeves. I honestly thought my luck could only be worse if I got lost after curfew and ran into Filch. I was wrong, of course. I'm always wrong. Because just around the next corner guess who I should run into? My sister, Pansy Parkinson, and a gang of other Slytherin girls. They all hate me (though my sister says she usually only pretends to – not that that helps) and I really don't know why.

With anyone's luck but mine, I could've made it across the corridor they were standing in and into the next one, without being noticed. But I've got the worst luck in the world, so of course that couldn't happen.

"Well, would you look who it is! Did you finally get out of detention or are you just _sleepwalking_?"

_Just ignore them, just ignore them, just ignore them, just ignore them._

"_Definitely _sleepwalking. Oh, no, wait, she's probably just gone _braindead _like _normal_."

_Just ignore them, don't kill them, Azkaban is five million times worse then detention._

"After all, she's so _stupid_, probably couldn't tell a _unicorn_ from a blast-ended _skrewt._"

_ALL RIGHT, THAT'S IT!_

"FURNUNCULUS!"

Angry red boils erupted on Parkinson's and a few of the other Slytherin girls' faces. I would've gotten caught eventually, of course, but what I wasn't counting on was Umbridge, and to make matters worse, _Filch_, coming round the corner at the _exact moment_ I fired the jinx.

"Now, what's this?" Asked Umbridge in a completely fake shocked voice. "Fighting in the hallways? We can't have that!" she kept glancing at me, and no matter how much she tried not to look happy that she had another reason to punish someone, I could tell that her inner demon was doing a victory dance. It's a pink demon, of course.

Unfortunately, while I was reflecting on this, the Slytherins were tattling to Umbridge. So I wound up in alone in the corridor with Umbridge and Filch after she sent the one's I'd hit off to the hospital wing, and the others back to their common room, she turned to me, with the widest smile I've ever seen her wear – and get this, it wasn't fake.

"I think that will be another weeks worth of detentions, Miss Dare, and another five points from Gryffindor."

With that she turned and headed of back to her office with Filch trailing behind her like a loyal dog.

Sure, I'd gotten detentions early in term before. I think I hold the record for most detentions since first year in Gryffindor. Usually for falling asleep. A lot of times for staying out after curfew because I got lost. But never have I had two whole weeks' detentions before the third month. And I've never gotten even one for fighting before.

Well, at least it can't get much worse…

Unless the world blows up and everyone dies.

Yeah, that's me, your friendly neighborhood prophet of doom, death, and, of course, destruction.

_A/N: Annnnnd, the end of chapter one! Yes, I know the thing about not being able to make a mistake while writing with Umbridge's quill wasn't in the book, but it seemed logical or the words could become illegible beneath a bunch of cross-outs._

_Comments? Concerns? Reviews in general?_


	3. Of Hallucinations and Heads in the Fire

**Chapter Two**

_-Of Hallucinations and Heads in the Fire that AREN'T Hallucinations-_

I've set a record.

I haven't gotten a detention in two whole weeks.

And that, my friend, is a sample of the random thoughts running through my head during what just so happens to be the most BORING class ever – and no, it's not How to Defend Yourself with Nothing More than a Spells a First-Year Would Know and A Plastic Monkey (Yes, I've been expanding on the list of 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' names.) – it's History of Magic.

Of course, now we all know I'm going to get a detention today. I've as good as jinxed myself.

"Blah blah blah goblinsgoblinsgoblins blah blah blah blah great war blah blah blah Eggbasher the Elephant-Headed."

I suddenly had an explosive fit of the chronic disease that we puny mortals know as the giggles.

Yes I'm crazy. We've established that.

My giggling subsided after thirty seconds or so. Professor Binns hadn't even batted an eyelash. Maybe that's a side effect of being dead; you don't need to blink.

"Blahblahblah."

I was beginning to wonder if it was humanly possible for one person to remain this obsessed with goblins for this long. Maybe he was teaching about it when he died, and it's some kind of weird ghost thing. But the least he could do is stop once and a while. That's the downside of having a ghost teacher, they don't need to pause for coughing fits and drinks of water. They don't even have to breathe. Frankly, I'm astonished that Hermione's hand hasn't shriveled up and fallen off from taking notes so fast

Having nothing better to do, I started examining the scars on the back of my hand. Right under 'I must not talk back' was 'I must not hex other students in the corridors." Okay, fine. I'll jinx them. When they ask for it, anyway.

"Blah. Class dismissed."

_Finally. _

Hey, I just set another record. I didn't fall asleep in History of Magic.

~::~

There was only one safe hour, known as lunch, before Torture that is made Legal by the Ministry. And no, it's not potions. It just so happens to be Defense Against the Dark Arts. Betcha didn't guess.

Maybe I'll just get lost accidently on purpose…

Nah. I'd still get detention. I mean, you kinda stop getting lost around second year.

~::~

I sit right near the front of the classroom, next to Hermione Granger. That's a bonus, because whenever the Amazing FrogWoman gives us work in class, she's REALLY easy to copy off of.

I just have to be careful not to get caught by her Toady Highness. Or Hermione, for that matter.

Soooo... I was about one sentence into copying down Chapter I-Don't-Care, when a pink flying hippo wielding a star-topped, streamer bedecked wand and wearing glittering fairy wings burst in the window and declared itself out new DADA teacher. Then it waved its magic sparkly wand and forever banished Umbridge from teaching again, into an eternity of doing the work she assigned her students over and over again.

Kidding.

I fell asleep.

Now, if the FrogWoman hadn't chosen that moment to start strolling among the aisles, I wouldn't've been caught. I don't snore, (A skill developed over years of sleeping in class/detention.) so she wouldn't have been able to tell.

But remember what I said about jinxing myself?

Turns out, I was right.

"Miss Dare? Miss _Dare. _I am _speaking_ to you."

I blearily opened my eyes and blinked a few times. As the world fell back into focus, I became suddenly aware of the gaudily dressed pink figure next to me. After an insane moment of thinking it really was the hippo, I realized who she was and I could've sworn I felt the scars on my hand tingle.

"And what was it exactly that you were doing? _Sleeping? _In _my _class?"

I heard a few snickers from the Slytherin side of the room. That made me mad, and _that _made me do something that, believe me, I regret.

"Er… yes… unless, of course, we got a new coughcompetentcough teacher while I was asleep. In which case, I'd figure I was still asleep, because that'd be too good to be true."

FrogWoman's face turned red and her mouth compressed into a thin line. I didn't need to look to know Hermione and possibly a few others were staring at me in shock, but I _did _hear more snickers, this time from the Gryffindors and directed at Umbridge. In a few moments, aforementioned evil Gargoyle-Toad creature had a horrible fake smile on her face.

"Detention, Miss Dare. Eight o'clock tonight."

I smiled right back at her.

~::~

Detention with the evil toad woman should have another name. It's hell. I pretty sure I'm going to have these scars on my hand when I turn fifty, and I'll probably never ever ever sleep in class again. There's a name for a condition involving always being sleepy, and whatever it is, I'm pretty sure I had it. The key word being had, because my dear evil Defense Against Kitties and Puppies and Cute Fluffy Ponies teacher has just cured me of it forever.

Hell is pink, in case you didn't know.

~::~

Madam Pomfrey got tired of me waking her up every other week at some ungodly hour to request even more Essence of Murtlap, so the last time I got some, she gave me as much as I could carry and told me to use it up before coming back. And believe me, that's what I'm going to do. Madam Pomfrey is one of those people who you shouldn't wake up EVER before at least eight o'clock and not talk to until they've downed their fourth cup of coffee. Or maybe whatever sleep condition I have is contagious, and I spread it to people when I'm in their presence. Because that would explain a lot.

Turns out, though, the hospital wing is a helluva lot closer to Umbridge's office than Gryffindor tower. Gryffindor tower is on the other side of the castle. At least, that's the way it seems when you're dodging Peeves, Filch, and Filch's demon cat. All this with a bleeding hand and no life-saving Essence of Murtlap. Orchestra, cue the James Bond music.

No wait, scratch that. Music would light up my position like a beacon and everything I don't want around would be drawn like moths to a flame.

The quickest way I can remember is past the great hall, and for some reason I can't explain, the great hall looks creepy in the dark. All the candles are out, there's no one in sight, and the only sound is my own footsteps on the cold stone floor. Seeing it so empty feels unnatural, like the castle is empty and I'm all alone. In fact, I can't remember feeling this scared around the hall since my sorting. Only at the sorting, there were people everywhere and it felt like they were all looking at me. Tonight is pretty much the exact opposite.

I hurry by the large double doors; I don't want to hang around any longer than I need to. Somewhere down a distant corridor, I can here Peeves singing to himself, and everything gets creepier. Don't ask me why, but the dark has always freaked me out. When I'm in the dark, I can't make jokes or wisecracks, because I want to sit in a corner and hide my face until morning. More than once when I was little, I'd be outside in the dark, and I'd hear hissing voices whispering strange things. I never told anyone because they'd think I was insane, but I still get jumpy. If you sneak up behind me in the dark, you're likely to get cursed so bad you'll wake up in a week thinking it's yesterday.

My irrational fears and twitchiness notwithstanding, it doesn't actually take that long to reach Gryffindor tower. Of course it you asked me, I'd tell you it actually took weeks of agonizing pain and fear, but you can never really trust my answers even when I'm sane.

Little did I know, I was about to come face to face with something very real and very frightening, far more so than any dark corridors and hidden voices. Because when I entered the Gryffindor common room, I saw Harry Potter, Ron Weasly, and Hermione Granger clustered around the fire and talking to a mass-murder's head in the flames.

…Because this day honestly couldn't get any worse.


End file.
